The militant group in a tweet by its spokesperson, self-styled Brig Gen Mudoch Agbinibo, confirming its involvement, said: “At about 3:45am, our strike team 06 took down Chevron Escravos export pipeline at Escravos offshore.”

It stated:”This action is to further warn all IOCs’ that when we warn that there should be no repairs pending negotiation/dialogue with the people of the Niger Delta, it means there should be no repairs.”

“Any attempt to use dialogue to distract us so as to allow the free flow of our oil will halt the dialogue process,” NDA added.

Before Niger Delta Avengers claimed responsibility for the attack, today, chair, Ugborodo Community, Ofe Nene, who was contacted by one of our reporters at about 8.00 am, confirmed the explosion, saying: “I do not have details of the incident, but a blast occurred last night at an offshore location.”

A security official, who refused commenting on the incident, said: “It is either an attack or a spill; our men in the field were woken up at about 4.00 am by local fishermen that noticed the spill.”

“For now, we cannot confirm if it was as a result of militant attack or rupture on the pipeline, but all I can say is that as I speak with you, there is a spill in the area from a damaged pipeline belonging to Chevron Nigeria Limited.”

Attempts to speak with the General Manager – Policy, Government and Public Relations, Chevron, Mr. Deji Haastrup, were fruitless at the time of this report.